Working Through Personality Differences in the Workplace

by Michelle Kozin, PI Worldwide

Personality differences in the workplace can be a powerful stimulus for new ideas and creative collaborations. They can even help organizations gain a competitive advantage. By considering multiple ideas and perspectives, as well as different approaches to problem-solving, your team members enable you to compete in a wider variety of situations.

If not managed properly, however, personality differences can escalate quickly from productive to destructive and expensive. So how can organizations get in front of potential discord, strengthen trust and improve productivity? Below are some ways that the data and insights from behavioral assessments can be used to help employees proactively recognize and respond to conflict:

Disconnects frequently occur when we personalize the responses received from others and interpret them from our own perspectives and experiences. By looking at the conflict through a lens of scientific data, however, both parties are able to set aside the “emotion” of the situation and focus objectively on what the data suggests is the likely communication disconnect.